Vivian Girls

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It's easy for music geeks to slip into moon-eyed, esoteric ranting when talking about Vivian Girls. The Brooklyn band is openly, unapologetically beholden to the output of hallowed indie labels like Sarah, Subway, and Slumberland—music that scratches up chirpy tweeness with a punk-rock Brillo pad. But Vivian Girls' self-titled debut is more than just a time capsule of indie-pop past. With wobbly harmonies, blizzard-condition guitars, and percussion better suited to a mastodon skull than a drum kit, the disc sounds more like a ghost of twee than the real thing, a phantom of whimsy and innocence lurching across a haunted playground. By the time the track "Where Do You Run To"—and its echoing impersonation of Joy Division's "A Means To An End"—shambles by, Vivian Girls morphs from a work of nosebleed pop into something icy and numbing.